I am having a tough week. I was recently compelled to write a column expressing skepticism about the prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey for shell art posted on social media, despite being one of his longest and most vocal critics. Now, I find myself having to write a column in defense of former Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro, who was just dumped as the commencement speaker for Georgetown Law School. I have criticized Schapiro for years as a major force in destroying the intellectual diversity in higher education. The problem with believing in free speech is that you have to believe in free speech even for those whose speech you abhor.The irony in both cases is crushing. Comey, who targeted President Donald Trump in a baseless Russian collusion investigation manufactured by the Clinton campaign, is now complaining about lawfare against him.Schapiro is even less compelling as a victim in a cancel campaign. While Northwestern president, Schapiro pandered to the left and showed little support for free speech on campus. Schapiro denounced what he called “absolute” free speech positions and endorsed speech sanctions, including treating speech as a form of assault.
Under Schapiro, a wide array of speech was deemed “microaggressive” or intolerable in the interests of harmony and inclusion. He did little to quell the viewpoint intolerance at Northwestern and the virtual purging of faculty ranks of conservative or Republican faculty.
Now the mob has come for Schapiro.
He was selected to speak at the law school commencement and immediately triggered an outcry. A Jewish academic, Schapiro is viewed as pro-Israel. He was immediately labeled a “Zionist” and an offensive choice by students and faculty.
A petition called on the administration to remove Schapiro, stating “Schapiro is not a lawyer, has no connection to Georgetown, and holds controversial, Zionist, and harmful opinions.”
Of course, past commencement speakers such as Henry Louis Gates Jr. were also non-lawyers with no connection to Georgetown, but there were no protests. That was just last year.
Every year, commencements remain a virtual lock for liberal and Democratic speakers. After eliminating most conservative faculty members from departments, universities have made commencements the final lessons of ideological indoctrination for students.
This year’s speakers include figures ranging from Nancy Pelosi (Notre Dame de Namur University) to Jamie Raskin (American University and Goucher College) to candidates like James Talarico (Paul Quinn College). There is no subtlety in their selection or their messages. As expected, Pelosi slammed the GOP and Trump while Talarico gave effectively a stump speech on fighting the billionaires.
Schapiro fits within the narrow ideological bandwidth of permissible liberal speakers with one notable complication: he supports Israel.
Accordingly, Schapiro was unceremoniously dumped and replaced with a Georgetown law professor who has opposed investigations into antisemitism on campuses.
For his part, Schapiro wrote campus leaders: “I have presided over 28 commencements as a president and dean, and those ceremonies are about celebrating the graduates and their supporters. I was looking forward to giving a talk about humility and gratitude, but I don’t want my presence to distract from the day’s festivities. I wish the law school graduates the best of luck in the days ahead.”
It was a gracious and mature response to an adolescent and irrational campaign.
It was, regrettably, the product of the very same cringing-concession policies I previously criticized Schapiro for enabling at Northwestern.
During his tenure, the university abandoned academic integrity and control to student mobs. One example that I previously discussed involved a Sociology class taught by Professor Beth Redbird that examined “inequality in American society with an emphasis on race, class and gender.” Redbird invited both an undocumented person and a spokesperson for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It was precisely the type of balanced discussion that we once valued in higher education, exposing students to vastly different views to allow them to consider the underlying social and political realities.
Various student groups organized protests to stop their fellow students from hearing from the ICE representative. They were greatly assisted by the university itself. As protesters screamed “F**k ICE” outside of the hall, the Dean of Students appeared and told these students that they would be allowed into the class if they promised not to disrupt it. The university simply asked them to stop screaming profanities and told Redbird that they promised to sit quietly in her class.
Of course, they immediately stopped the class, the ICE official had to be removed, and Redbird was forced to cancel her class. What was most unnerving was not just the passivity of Northwestern (which took no action against the students) but also the sense of entitlement at the university that prevented others from speaking.
Sophomore April Navarro rejected the notion that faculty should be allowed to invite such speakers to their classrooms for a “good, nice conversation with ICE.” She added, “We’re not interested in having those types of conversations … We’re not engaging in those kinds of things; it legitimizes ICE’s violence, it makes Northwestern complicit in this.”
Now, it is Schapiro himself being canceled.
In Rage and the Republic, I write about how academic and political figures are ignoring history as they pander to radical groups. Democratic leaders like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries believe that they can ride a rage wave back into power. What they ignore is how these revolutions ultimately “devour their own.” Today’s revolutionaries become tomorrow’s reactionaries.
Schapiro is only the latest victim of viewpoint intolerance in higher education. Of course, his detractors can quote Schapiro himself in dismissing objections as reducing free speech to mere “slogans or free speech at all costs.” It appears that he is now one of the prohibitive costs to be avoided in our academic echo chamber.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
This column also ran on Fox.com
Poor Professor Turley. He’s having a bad week. He’s had to write posts that get published in visible places like The Hill. How terribly difficult for him. Meanwhile, the rest of us get to write comments on his blog, apparently sitting in awe of his principled stance protecting rights, grateful that he’s teaching us how to be vocal about these things.
Come on, Turley. We’re already doing this. We’ve been doing it for years in workplaces, neighborhoods, and social settings where there are actual consequences. No tenure. No media platform. No institutional protections. Just ordinary citizens defending the same constitutional principles you write about, except we face real risks when we do it. We don’t get columns when we take unpopular stands. We get awkward silences, damaged relationships, and whispered concerns about our judgment.
If you read your comment section, you’d realize we’re not students awaiting instruction. We’re not having some revelation when you defend free speech for people you’ve criticized. We already know this. We already live this. It’s great that you’re standing with us. That’s why we’re here. But don’t mistake our presence for dependence on your wisdom. The difference between us isn’t principle or courage. It’s that you’re insulated from consequences we face every day. Recognize that.
A snide comment about your host? Seriously?
Is that the real Olly?
Sam, it’s not snide. It’s honest feedback about framing. Turley positions himself as taking brave, lonely stands on principles his own commenters have been articulating for years without the institutional protections he enjoys. That’s worth calling out.
I appreciate the platform. I appreciate his legal analysis. I appreciate that he creates space for this dialogue. But when he opens with “I’m having a tough week” because he had to write columns defending free speech, while his comment section is filled with people defending those same principles in actual vulnerable positions, that deserves pushback.
This isn’t about being ungrateful. It’s about recognizing that the people here aren’t passive students receiving instruction. We’re citizens already doing this work in the real world, often at real cost. Turley’s value is standing with us and amplifying these issues, not teaching us lessons we already know and live.
If honest critique of how he frames his role is off limits, then we’re not actually engaged in dialogue. We’re just an audience. I don’t think that’s what this space is supposed to be.
You are engaged in a not-so-subtle effort to establish yourself, somehow, on equal footing, when, unfortunately for you, as dad used to say, you couldn’t carry his jockstrap–though it does appear you wish you could. Go waste your time somewhere else or better yet, get some therapy for your deep rooted inferiority.
Olly, the point is not that we already know this but rather that some minds might be changed by Professor Turley’s defense of our Constitution rights. He is not writing for the ear of the convinced but for those who somehow remain on the fence that they might stand up for our freedoms in a troubled time. I for one am thankful for his continued diligence. You infer that his repeated explanations of the rights empowered in the Constitution are just old hat. Well you got your first complaint of the day over and done with. Curmudgeon.
Think, I get that argument. If Turley framed it as “I’m writing to reach people who haven’t thought through these principles,” fine. That’s legitimate work.
But that’s not how he frames it. He opens with “I’m having a tough week” and “I find myself compelled” to defend these principles, as if he’s taking some personal hit the rest of us aren’t taking. That’s the victim pose I’m calling out.
The problem isn’t repetition of constitutional principles. The problem is framing his defense of them as uniquely costly or brave when he has tenure, platforms, and institutional protections most of us defending the same principles don’t have. If he’s writing for fence-sitters, great. Then skip the “poor me” introduction and just make the argument.
Not curmudgeonly. Just honest about who’s actually carrying the heavier load.
Fool. He takes free speech seriously, even though, as a human being filled with disgust for the idiots who are want to tear down this country, a country he loves dearly, he will swallow his patriotic pride and defend scum. That’s a tough man. His words reach millions and there’s a very small chance any of the enemies of freedom will heed his call, as he plugs away anyway, much preferring, I expect, to address other issues than this one, which appears to be a lost cause at a turning point in our young nation’s life. These clowns are determined to destroy 250 of unprecedented human rights achievements.
Anonymous, Turley puts his pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us. He’s a principled leader in this fight, but I expect a leader to not whine about “a tough week,” feeling “compelled” to defend a scumbag like Comey, or “having to write a column” defending Schapiro for self-cancelling. That’s weak framing for his principled stance. Maybe he thinks that demonstrates moral courage, but I believe it undermines it. Viktor Frankl or Dietrich Bonhoeffer showed what moral courage actually looks like.
Turley’s words reach millions because he has platforms we don’t have. That’s valuable. But the rest of us are making the same arguments in our communities where there’s zero chance the enemies of freedom will listen and actual chance we’ll damage relationships, lose professional opportunities, or face social ostracism. We’re doing the same work without the institutional armor. I’m not sitting here in awe of his courage. I’m standing with him as a peer in this fight, just without the protection.
Don’t mistake my critique of his framing for failure to appreciate the work. I’m here because I value what he does. I just want honest accounting of who’s actually taking risks.
I understand jealousy. I don’t understand what kind of kick you hope to get from criticizing a professor, an author, a recognized constitutional scholar around the world and a man determined to be fair to all. Your remarks are stupid, irrelevant and expose your insecurity like the noonday sun. He has no concern over your best efforts to thrash him a good one. You’re a boomerang, bucko.
I would love Turley to speak his mind without being careful, but I prefer a voice of reason over no voice at all.
SM, I’m not asking him to be silent. I value his voice and the platform. I and many others on this blog not only defend Turley in his principled stance on these issues, but we’re also the warriors out in the trenches fighting the same injustices without the safety net he has. We’re making these arguments in workplaces and neighborhoods where there are actual consequences. No tenure. No media platform. No institutional protections.
That’s why the “I’m having a tough week” framing grates. We’re standing with him, not behind him waiting for lessons. We’re peers in this fight, just without the armor.
To me, “I’m having a tough week” means he would like to do more.
“We’re making these arguments in workplaces and neighborhoods where there are actual consequences. No tenure. No media platform. No institutional protections.”
Turley takes big risks by saying what he does. As much as I may speak in favor of conservative-libertarian views, what I say is heard almost exclusively by the right. What Turley says filters throughout. I thinik he is braver than you realize.
Nicholas Copernicus and then Galileo Gallilei gave us the idea that the universe does not orbit around Earth. Earth orbits around the sun. That was very unpopular with the Vatican. It tried to excommunicate that idea out of existence. Today we see that the collision between the two bodies of thought produced the view that the truth rests on the side of of those two individuals. Also today, the conservative or libertarian body of thought and the liberal body of thought are in play in the search for the truth in higher education. The question before the house is whether higher education can teach one or the other body of thought out of existence where excommunication failed.
If you value academic freedon and free speech Professor Turley’s description of Shapiro’s ‘leadership’ at NU would seem to make him a poor choice as a graduation speaker. His selection reflects poorly on those who chose him. Surely there was a better alternative.
Those who got him cancelled are essentially the same product, they are OK with cancelling, censorship, and all the other Leftist crap. Just one issue, one that at this point needs open discussion, got him nixed.
So yeah, leftists eating their own, Bravo!
I just don’t get it. The leftist students should be expressing their heartfelt thanks to the Jew.
After all, seventy nine percent of the Jews voted for Kamala Harris. The crowd turned on the Jews a long time ago but somehow the Jews continue to support those who would keep them from speaking in their own defense. I support the Jewish cause but I can’t for the life of me understand why the Jews continue to support their antagonists. If you are a Jew perhaps you could respond to this comment and explain this contradiction. If there is a cognitive explanation I am open to a change of opinion. Until such an explanation is forthcoming I must regretfully remain sadly befuddled.
I support the Jewish cause but I can’t for the life of me understand why the Jews continue to support their antagonists. If you are a Jew perhaps you could respond to this comment and explain this contradiction.
I am Jewish and it is hard for me to believe that other Jews continue to think the way they do. The Torah can provide some insight (ie. Tikkun Olam) with its commitment to morality and giving. The history of Jewish survival over three millennium adds a bit more insight.
There is a lot more which is hard for me to understand. I was brought up as a Democrat and that upbringing lingers till today along with the knowledge that Republicans weren’t always the friend of the Jews. One thinig you must consider is that secular, reform and conservative Jews are more progressive. Jews in an orthodox or Chassidic environment are generally conservative. The strange thing that I have personally seen (anecdote) is that in my religious environment, the leftist Jews and conservatives strongly disagree, and I have seen some hot tempers flying, but a handshake at the end.
For a properly divided people each faction must have a list of goods and bads. Deviating on even one position causes stress and leads to emotional and unfounded accusations. Maybe the list evolves to slowly due to hardening of the categories, comfort in the constancy of being sure.🤣🤣🤣
Old Fish, you condensed your words to such an extent that I do not fully understand what you are trying to say. I want to hear because I think you have something to offer.
The communist the use the mob will quickly dispense of them once they gain power. Prison camps and mass executions. It’s why liberals don’t teach the real history, no one would be stupid enough to be in the mobs if they did teach the real history of communism.
Estimates suggest that over 100 million people have died as a result of communist policies, including through executions, famines, and forced labor. This figure is derived from various studies and historical analyses of the impact of communist regimes throughout the 20th century.
And the first people they kill is the people that actually helped the revolution, because they are the most dangerous to the new leaders for a new counter revolution when they institute their repressive policies and their lies are exposed.
Remember the Kronstadt sailors?
When Kronstadt sailors concluded that real power rested with the Bolshevik leadership (the Communist Party leadership and state institutions) rather than the soviets as workers’ councils, they staged the Kronstadt Rebellion in March 1921 demanding political reforms, freedom of speech, release of political prisoners, restoration of soviet authority, and new elections. The Bolshevik government viewed the uprising as counter-revolutionary. After weeks of clashes, Red Army forces under Trotsky and Tukhachevsky assaulted Kronstadt. The rebellion was crushed; several thousand rebels were killed in the fighting, many more were wounded, and thousands were arrested. Surviving participants faced execution, imprisonment, or exile to labor camps; sailors and civilians associated with the revolt lost careers and political standing. The suppression helped push the Bolsheviks to introduce the New Economic Policy but also marked a decisive end to soviet-style council power in Bolshevik Russia.
How was Trotsky thanked?
After Lenin’s death (1924) Trotsky lost a power struggle with Stalin and his allies. He was removed from key positions, expelled from the Communist Party in 1927, and deported from the Soviet Union in 1929. Trotsky spent years in exile, writing and organizing the Left Opposition against Stalinism from locations including Turkey, France, Norway, and finally Mexico.
On August 20, 1940, Trotsky was attacked at his home in Coyoacán, Mexico City, by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish-born NKVD agent, and died the next day (August 21, 1940) from injuries inflicted by an ice axe blow to the head. Mercader was arrested, imprisoned in Mexico for 20 years, and later received Soviet honors. Trotsky’s works and political legacy remain influential and controversial.
The Left has always eaten its own. As the rage-filled Leftist extremists get powerful, they destroy the moderates that appeased them and smoothed their path to victory. It’s easy to take pleasure in seeing his totalitarian views biting him in the arse. But the truth is he won’t learn from it. He’ll self flagellate in penance for his “offensiveness” and bow out with slimy words of repentance. If he had any guts he would renounce his previous stance and embarrass them for theirs. But he doesn’t. He’s a Leftist. No guts, no brains, and no ability to anticipate the unintended consequence of his actions.
Well sadly Shapiro the collaborationist puppet / puppet master is getting his full circle comeuppance. As the Martin Niemöller poem notes they finally “came for me” and his enlightened mobs are ready to burn.
Well done as always Professor. It seems it will definitely get worse if the Democrats take over Congress. The four years under Biden suppressing conservative speech on social media and rewriting history was nothing compared to what they threaten to do if they get in power. They have no plan to govern, their Nazi Communist and Socialist candidates main plan is to shutdown the entire government and bring it down, along with Trump. Communist Fascist Revolution. We may be really reliving the 1933 Machtergreifung. I never thought I would see this in the United States of America.
Universities that conference honorary degrees are notorious for left-leaning or solidly so commencement speakers. By contrast, Cornell University conferred honorary degrees only once in 1872 to its first President and to another who would become the president of Stanford. Commencement speakers ordinarily were members of the graduating class. Sadly, that tradition was broken in the 100th commencement with a distinctly liberal outside speaker. To this day Cornell remains the only Ivy that does not confer honorary degrees (or have a Latin motto.)
Cornell is not exempt from the insanity sweeping our campuses. Indeed, Cornell was leading the charge to this madness when it allowed an armed band of thugs to take over the student union in 1969, with the administration capitulating and granting amnesty to the perps. Thomas Sowell said it was “The Day Cornell Died”.
https://www.hoover.org/research/day-cornell-died
Now, the “progressive” mob is coming after Cornell’s President Michael Kotlikoff, who was, interestingly, part of the radical previous administration that legitimized the far-left agenda. Apparently he was not far-left enough, just like Morton Schapiro.
And, in a twist of fate, the leader of the armed takeover of the Straight later became a University Trustee and then Trustee Emeritus. Perhaps more interestingly, Tom Jones served as vice chairman, president, chief operating officer and chief financial officer of TIAA-CREF, the largest pension system in the US serving principally college and university faculties and staff. The list of his accomplishments after that famous 1969 Life Magazine photo rivals virtually any graduate of Cornell University in history. Read his bio or book “From Willard Straight to Wall Street.” That day April 19, 1969 is notable to anyone from Massachusetts as “Patriot’s Day,” the day of the battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775 and also memorably the day this member of Cornell Class of 1968 was inducted into the US Army.
It’s time for us all to shed copious amounts of crocodile tears for this erstwhile victim. Just because he is apparently Jewish and a supporter of Israel does not mean he cannot also be a fool or a jerk. These are not mutually exclusive positions.
But I must admit to a certain amount of glee seeing a canceler getting canceled. Maybe this will give him some much needed perspective.
It is still disconcerting seeing someone from a vilified group take on the mantra of the vilifiers. I know it happens but still is disconcerting. There seems to be something lacking there.
GEB,
One would like to think he would gain such perspective.
Something tells me he will not.
Now, had he been allowed to give his speech and interrupted by the heckler’s veto shouting antisemitic slurs, then maybe.
Or if he had been followed to his car and surrounded by antisemitics threatening him, then maybe.
Sometimes that is what it takes.
And some are learning this.
On Firing Line, conservative William F. Buckley would host leaders of the Left. Socialists, Black Panthers, Democrats. Did not matter. He gave radicals like Saul Alinsky and Huey Newton a platform to debate.
Same with Milton Friedman. He’d give lectures and left wing students would try to engage him. Of course, he dismantled their arguments, but he gave them a chance to promote their economically inefficient collectivist economic ideas.
How that culture of open debate was lost is a sad testament to the society the elites have built.
Same with Charlie Kirk. May he RIP.
When I was young I used to think that William F Buckley was a bit pompous, the way he sat, the way he spoke, but I don’t recall disliking him at all.
Another speaker who, for some reason, I am reminded of when I remember WF Buckley is Christopher Hitchens. I think it is their rationality, decorum, and general respectabity that ties them together in my mind.
Barack Obama also seems quite pompous to me. It was rich when he said his party needed to stop talking to people like they were teaching a college seminar.🙄 So superior!
The first two were a gift, a great loss. The latter was, and remains, a curse.
“I am a leftist!”
“You are not leftist enough! Off with your head!”
The irony indeed.
Irony? What irony?
How is it my fault you are not educated enough to see the irony?
Upstate (1) Ano still a (0)
it has become clear for quite some time now, that in the sacred halls of academia’s insane asylum, that the inmates are in charge.
The chickens are coming home to roost. The monster they have created, the anarchy they have endorsed and even incited, are coming to bite them on the butt. Look at the Cornell professor who could barely make it out of the parking lot. This country is heading in to total anarchy
He is Cornell’s President. And the Board of Trustees is “investigating” him for moving his car.
Does anyone really feel bad when the guy that teaches the dog to be vicious gets eaten by the dog? Or when the liberal police defunder gets mugged?
HullBobby,
“Or when the liberal police defunder gets mugged?”
In their warped view of the world, they some how will blame it on . . . something.
Ever look at the deans list? Very few American students
Further support of my firm belief in (unconditional) free speech. Because without free speech how can we tell who the idiots are?
A very good point. I learned my skepticism of government and those in power generally in the 70’s from liberals in my poli sci classes. I learned that I was conservative from listening to Democrats argue that taking capital from the private sector and putting it in the hands of politicians would grow the economy. They assumed I was stupid enough to believe that. I was naive enough about politics to think a peanut farmer and nuclear engineer from a southern state might make a good president. I never made that mistake again. These days free speech lets us know who to fear.
RE: “Because without free speech how can we tell who the idiots are?” However, once having done so, there are certainly legal methods for tossing them into the wind and thus separating the wheat from the chaff.
There’s a fire in the theater! Run for your lives.
Headline: 10 people died in a theater after someone yelled fire. There was no fire. Unconditional huh?
Morty was just as bad at Williams College before getting a raise to go to Northwestern. Live and not learn.
Democrat = Fascist
End Federal Aid going to Colleges
This is the answer: Defund higher education. I, for one, don’t want one penny of my tax dollars going to schools like this. Let the fools that think they are getting an education pay full freight.
Defund higher education? Then we’d all be as stupid as you then. No thanks.
Ah Robespierre, are you ready to meet La Veuve?